iPhone 5S review

Faster, new camera and a clever fingerprint reader. But is it enough of an upgrade?

The iPhone 5S: a phone that looks like the iPhone 5, but goes so much further under the hood. Is that going to be enough to impress the baying hoardes?

We've been here before: the iPhone 'S' conundrum. The new phone comes along, taking the shell of the previous model, adds some new bits and pieces, and then claims to be an entirely new phone.

Which it is, of course. But also it isn't. Well, mostly is. To be sure, it's the kind of move that only Apple can pull off with any kind of conviction: the notion that it can take the same chassis, have a little tinker, throw in a new CPU, slightly better battery and camera, and call it an all-conquering device.

But then again, such is the clamour to know all about it, is that such a bad move? There are literally millions of people the world over who can't wait to see what the next handset from Apple will be, and there was no surprise with the iPhone 5S.

There are a few who question whether it's 'fair' to launch a phone and then append an 'S' to the same thing a year later - Apple's response would likely be that nobody is forcing you to buy the new hardware. And that's a fair point. Yes, this is a phone that bears far too many hallmarks of its predecessor. And yes, this is the third time Apple has done this.

It's also managed to try to pop it onto the market complete as one of the most expensive smartphones out there, even on 3G plans. You'll be looking at post £50 a month to get one without an upfront fee in the UK, and £549 will be the price if you want the low end model, pushing all the way up to over £700 for the 64GB variant.

But if it was such a bad business move, if the market wasn't willing to accept such a thing, then Apple would have folded as a smartphone brand years ago... or at least been lagging behind the competition.

That said, times are changing in the smartphone landscape. Where before Apple was able to just create the phone it wanted, and forget the competition in the knowledge that it wasn't going to have to worry about losing consumers to a competitor, now it's been forced to realise that there are at least four decent options for a consumer to think about if they want to get a rather good handset.

Apple is obviously aware of this change, be it the aluminium unibody of theHTC One, the new fight into low-light cameras or the need for a strong processor as a headline to shout about. And to be fair, it's addressed these needs to some degree or other on the iPhone 5S.

Be it the all-new Touch ID home button (which is excellent, more on that later), the huge jump in CPU power or the fact the camera has, once again, been improved no end, the new iPhone is clearly Apple's attempt at bringing as much as it can to the party without having to re-design the whole concept all over again.

There are many that think releasing the same design twice is cheeky, and there are others who realise that sometimes there's no need for change. It's easy to fall into the former camp, and while Apple will happily point out it's not forcing anyone to buy its phones, its acutely aware the competition is now scarily strong and it needed to bring its best to stay relevant.

Design

What can you say about the design of the iPhone 5S that already hasn't been said with the iPhone 5? Let's face it: there's nothing really new here that's going to help you work out ifthe person sitting opposite you on the train is rocking an all-new phone.

Perhaps that's less of an issue now that the iPhone is becoming something of a commodity, a device that is so oft-used by the middle-aged generation that it no longer carries the lustre that the exclusivity of the earlier models emanated.

That's not necessarily a bad thing either; just because it's not an 'exclusive' design, it doesn't make the iPhone 5S any less premium.

It's still a stunning phone to hold in the hand, coming with the all-aluminium-and-glass chassis. There's no doubt Apple has had a look at the way the iPhone 5 range (well, black and white) chipped so badly around the edges.

That's apparent already in our iPhone sample within a week, so it looks like you're going to quickly need to stuff your new iPhone 5S in a case the second you release it from its box, lest you leave it in a pocket or bag with change and keys and it comes out looking like it's gone a few rounds with a randy cheese grater.

The new colours, which include champagne and space grey, are a little odd, but at least promise to show up the scuffs a little less prominently.

The way the iPhone 5S feels in the hand is something impressive though, coming with the low, low weight of 112g and dimensions of 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm. It's still got that almost too-light feeling, that the premium metal finish is somehow diminished through the lack of heft, but it's a long, long way from feeling cheap.

Compared to something like the Galaxy S4 or LG G2, the iPhone 5S is miles ahead when it comes to design, although less so than the HTC One orOne Mini which have repeated the aluminium-clad trick.

It's got a slightly sharper edge than other models on the market, which can make it a little uncomfortable when being pressed to the ear. But we're not going to quibble too much there lest it makes us seem a little wimpy.

There are only a couple of real differences compared to the iPhone 5, and one of them really is miniscule: the camera module is now flanked by a dual-LED flash, which we'll talk more about later (it's a really rather nifty piece of technology, trust us).

The other is a lot more substantial and impressive: the home button has been redesigned.

Yes, it doesn't sound like much, but consider how iconic the Apple home button has been over the past half-decade, and you'll see why we're holding the change in such high esteem. The visual effect is impressive, taking the square off the button and putting a fancy silver ring around the key.

The effect isn't only aesthetic, as this area now also serves as the fingerprint scanner, home to Apple's new Touch ID technology.

Having bought two separate biometric security firms, Apple was likely to do something like this, but the implementation and visual effect is really something that Apple does well, and has done so here too.

Beyond that, the iPhone 5S is identical to the 5, even down to the rattle in the home button. We're still a little confused as to why a device with such a high build quality has a slightly loose part with it, but shake the iPhone 5S gently and you'll feel the key moving around.

It's not a big deal, but every so often you'll note the motion, and it does detract somewhat.

Thankfully the rest of the phone is built impeccably. The round volume keys are easy to hit. the switch to enable volume on or off has the same sturdy feel that we've come to enjoy, and the headphone port is still welded to the bottom of the phone.

The Lightning connection port is here as well, along with the stereo speakers on the bottom of the phone. We wish these were placed somewhere else, as when cupping the phone in landscape mode it's far too easy to cover these with palms or digits, and there's not really any way to shift around them.

You can always use headphones, but that kind of negates the point of the speakers for gaming at all.

Now the right hand side hasn't been left completely alone on the 5S, with Apple choosing this surface as the location for the SIM card tray - but unlike most smartphones that take microSIMs these days, iPhones now rock the tiny nanoSIM technology.

There's also the new leather cases, which are something of an oddity for a brand that's just overhauled its whole outlook with an all-new operating system. They're slightly cumbersome, making it hard to hit the buttons, and they get scuffed so easily - all for £25.

But beyond that we're still impressed with the design of the iPhone 5S. It's hard not to be, as if there's one thing that Apple gets totally right it's the way it assembles its devices.

The metal and glass combination does feel a little fragile, and we'd recommend a case (perhaps a third party option) to protect the aluminium, but the design is something that at least helps mitigate the higher price.

Display

Apple has used the same Retina display as found in the iPhone 5, and now the iPhone 5C too, in the new flagship model. It's a four-inch screen, and comes with a resolution of 1136 x 640, making it still razor sharp at 326DPI.

This is a difficult one to call in terms of recommending the display compared to the rest of the smartphone world, as there are definitely better screens out there.

The four-inch size of the screen is impressive still though, as while we might be fans of the larger screen for movies and internet browsing on the Samsung Galaxy S4 or HTC One, the iPhone 5S is a great phone for people that hate the idea of being forced to live with a bigger screen they don't want.

It's not perfect though, as despite what Apple would have you believe, the screen is just a tad too large to operate easily with one hand.

With a small amount of shifting you can get the thumb all the way across, but given you have to jiggle the phone in the palm a little bit to do so, it kind of feels redundant.

In terms of the clarity of the iPhone 5S' display, we'd say it's excellent in terms of colour reproduction and general effect, but there are better displays out there.

Many people will be upgrading to the iPhone 5S from the 4S, and this is one of the few areas where, extended size aside, they won't see a large amount of difference.

The sharpness is great, the colour reproduction still industry leading, but the brightness can be a little erratic for some low-contrast movies and isn't big enough for speedy typing. HD movies still look acceptable on the device, but we've seen a much more jaw-dropping effect on rival devices, such as the LG G2.

We like that Apple is leading the charge to stop screen sizes going too far in the wrong direction, but there could be something more that's done here.

Even a display with a thinner bezel would have impressed (although scaling apps might have been a problem, with is something Apple is so proud of) but we still think in the face of fierce opposition there's a lot more theiPhone 6 can offer.

Battery life, connectivity and iTunes

Battery life

Battery life on the iPhone 5S is something that a lot of people will be checking out for a number of reasons, and mostly because they'll be curious as to how the uprated processor and iOS 7 combine to improve the life of your power pack.

While the iPhone 5 was an improvement in battery life for the iPhone range, there was still room for more, and that's partly come on the iPhone 5S.

The main thing that's been fixed is the fact that leaving the iPhone 5S on standby, perhaps overnight, sees very little drain on the battery. One night we noticed around 15% drop, but after that it was merely 4-5% on average which we can put down to iOS 7 keeping its apps in order a little better.

So that's a big problem of the iPhone battery solved: if its in your pocket, it won't inexplicably run out of juice.

However, there's still a rather large issue we need to address with the battery: and that's the problem of actually using the phone. We test a large number of devices here at TechRadar, and in our more intensive tests it's always interesting to see which phone fare better.

A little photography, web browsing, video watching and flicking through apps not only warmed up the 5S quite considerably but also saw a rather rapid drain in the battery. For instance: streaming BBC iPlayer on the train home for half an hour saw a 20% drop in the battery life. The likes of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One can do nearly half that, and the LG G2's Snapdragon 800 processor can go even lower.

We can't see how the claims of 8 hours' browsing on 3G holds any water, as that was one area that really hurt the battery and caused the phone to heat up. Talking also drained the power pack, and Apple's quoting up to 10 hours on 3G. Again, we can't see it.

It's not horrendous, and if you're an iPhone user you'll be used to a faster battery drain, but there's definitely a wistful air that hangs over us every time we check out the battery percentage in the top-right corner.

However, here's a great little update that will cheer you up: the iPhone 5S charges phenomenally quickly. REALLY quickly. We timed a charge in just a little over two hours from nearly dead - that's great if you just need a slug of juice on the run.

Connectivity

Unsurprisingly the iPhone 5S comes will all manner of connectivity options, but NFC is still the high-profile absentee at the Apple party. Not even the plastic clad iPhone 5C could tempt the firm to give us a bit of contactless tech, and it clearly paints a picture of where the brand stands in this area.

It's worth mentioning again that the iPhone 5S sports Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, 3G and4G connectivity, with special mention of the latter as this phone supports the most LTE bands than any other smartphone, allowing even more people to take advantage of the superfast network.c

There's a new way to control Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 in iOS 7 with the arrival of the Control Center, which is accessed with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen as we mentioned before.

This brings up some shortcut settings including toggles for both connections, plus you can also enable airplane mode here if you want to go off the grid - or, you know, if you get on a plane.

GPS and GLONASS also make an appearance to help you locate yourself in Maps with earth shattering accuracy (and very quickly, too) and navigate you round the world with the free turn-by-turn satellite navigation system.

The iPhone 5S sports Apple's new physical connection port - dubbed Lightning - on its base which is used for charging as well as connecting to computers and any third party peripherals you may pick up.

It provides a faster connection than the 30-pin port it replaced, allowing for quicker data transfer meaning you won't be waiting around quite so long. Plus you can plug it in both ways round, which saves scrabbling at night.

Apple offers its own cloud storage solution cunningly named iCloud which lets you store all your vital information in its secure servers should the worst happen to your iPhone 5S.

You can back up everything from contacts, mail and calendars to photos, documents and notes to iCloud, and if you've owned an iDevice in the past you can download your settings from that onto your iPhone 5S - saving you from having to re-enter various bits of information.

iCloud also enables the "Find my iPhone" feature, so if you were to misplace your new iPhone you can log onto the iCloud website and see where your phone is on a map.

Once located you have the choice of making play a sound so you can dig it out from behind the sofa, report it as lost or erase the contents of the phone - it's all very clear stuff.

iTunes

No longer is there a reliance in Apple's desktop iTunes software when you come to starting up your iPhone for the first time - no physical connection ever needs to made to a computer during the lifetime of the 5S if you don't fancy digging out your Lightning cable.

If you do decide it's time for things to get physical between your computer and iPhone then you'll need to make sure you've got the latest version of iTunes (that's version 11.1) installed, otherwise it will refuse to play with your new phone.

Why would you want/need to connect your iPhone 5S to your computer? Well perhaps you've got lots of music, movies and photos you want to transfer from your machine to your new phone - iTunes will pull it all in, churn it up and spit it out to your new iPhone in a useable format.

Using iTunes is a rather hit and miss experience, with the software performing far better on a Mac than a Windows PC, but either way it's usually a long, drawn out process which involves lots of syncing - so avoid it if you can or are tremendously regimented in your music organisation.

Apps

When it comes to applications the App Store on the iPhone 5S really only has one competitor in the form of Google Play, and it's fair to say that the App Store still comes out on top in terms of quality - if not quantity.

At last count earlier this year, Apple confirmed it had over 900,000 applications in its App Store, so there's plenty for you to choose from including business related content, fitness apps and games.

The store itself is simple to navigate with various categories to drill down into to find the apps best suited to you, and the Top Charts shows you which ones are the most popular at the moment - and ultimately the ones which are worth downloading.

You can download a maximum of three applications simultaneously on the iPhone 5S, letting you get your favourite apps onto the phone even quicker.

If you select more than three to download the others will wait in the wings on your homescreen and will commence downloading when another has finished.

Apps such as Clock, Calendar, Weather, Calculator and Compass are all self explanatory, intuitive and have been given a visual reboot thanks to iOS 7.

The Passbook app arrived with iOS 6 last year and provides you with a storage area for all your loyalty and gift cards, cinema tickets and airplane boarding passes.

It's scope is limited depending on which region you live in and there's only a handful of applications which current support the Passbook way of life - although most of the major airlines have tie ins with the service, as do the likes of Starbucks, AirBnB and yPlan.

Passbook seems like the perfect opportunity to work inNFC to the iPhone ecosystem, but calls for the contactless technology have continued to fall on deaf ears over at Apple - the wait goes on, and looks like it may do so forever.

In short Passbook has a lot of potential, it just hasn't been realised by Apple or app developers yet.

Overall, many apps in the store need something of a refresh to make sure they play nicely with iOS 7. For instance: GMail still uses the old keyboard from iOS 6. Netflix and Adidas MiCoach won't recognise the phone. Some games will crash where the ran fine on the iPhone 5.

We're sure this will happen soon, and many may not even notice it, so we'll be checking back and updating the review in the near future.

Siri

Siri makes a return to the iPhone arena on the iPhone 5S and thanks to the iOS 7 update it's got a few new tricks up its sleeve - including the ability for you to choose whether it's a woman's or man's dulcet tones which ask you "what can I help you with?"

Just hold down the home button to activate Siri, or hold down the central button on the earpods cable if you're in need of some hands-free action.

All the usual commands are present, from making a call and writing a text to setting a reminder to buy milk and finding out if you need to take an umbrella with you - because looking out of the window is difficult.

You can ask your virtual assistant to launch applications - although we found this a little unnecessary - and with the help of WolframAlpha you can ask poignant questions such as "how many days until Christmas?" or "how far away is the moon?" It's enlightening stuff.

We still think Siri trumps the Google Now offering in Android, but it's usefulness varies from country to country - with the best service available in the States where far more services are intertwined with the personal assistant.

Siri has become more useful with iOS 7, there's little disputing that, and the range of answers and information it can give is inching closer to day by day use. It's not great for some things, especially outside of the US, but we don't hate it as much any more. That's a win.

While Apple's own business orientated applications, aimed at taking on Microsoft's Office suite and Google Docs, don't come pre-installed on the iPhone 5S it's worth noting these apps are now available to download free on all newly purchased iPhones.

This means you can get access to Pages (a word processor), Keynote (a PowerPoint rival) and Numbers (basically Excel) free of charge, which will be a godsend for anyone looking to use the iPhone 5S for business. You'll also get iPhoto and iMovie for free too, and really does supercharge the iPhone when it comes to being a fully-formed device right out of the box.

All your documents are backed up to iCloud as well, meaning they'll be available on any of your iDevices or Macs - plus you can also access them via any web browser by going to the iCloud website.

Let's face it: if you want the best apps experience out there, then Apple still has it. While the top end of Android devices are pretty universal in their slick UI and power for apps, Google Play still has to deal with so much fragmentation.

Google has done a fantastic job at managing to overcome this problem, but its rare we'll download an app on an iPhone and an Android device and not be more impressed by the UI (if perhaps not always the functionality) on the iPhone or iPad.

Verdict

The iPhone 5S is Apple's latest attempt to stay at the sharp end of the smartphone market, and it's even trying to do that with an iterative update.

Detractors will point to the identical shell (colours aside) of the iPhone 5S and claim that it's not much more than a rebadged iPhone 5 (nope... that's the iPhone 5C, people) but to do that misses the point of this new device massively.

We liked

The iPhone 5S is a phone that takes everything Apple has learned in this space over the last six and a half years and put it together in an incredibly cohesive manner.

If you want to match it spec for spec with other smartphones, then it's a difficult task - but it misses the point of Apple's new device.

Below the surface Apple has put together one of the most cutting-edge smartphones around, imbued with a top-end camera and a really innovative feature with Touch ID.

There's only so much that smartphone manufacturers can do to differentiate these days, and while Apple can't expect consumers to be wowed by the same shell, it can expect to get some interest in the sharp camera and gives a sense of relief with the new A7 chip.

We're also really intrigued to see what the M7 chip alongside will do - Apple is giving developers a really cool tool to play with, and it looks like it won't be too long before we see the fruits of that.

Yes, the A7 chip doesn't have a huge role to play now, but it does make things like camera use so much faster, and facilitates the increased security in Touch ID.

We disliked

We'll start with a different refrain: the screen technology on offer here is what upsets us most. There will be a lot of upgraders from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone 5S, and many of them will be disappointed to see that two years later they're still looking at the same resolution, albeit a bit stretched out.

The only reason they'll be a little sad is that the Full HD screens of the rivals are so much more impressive - in its own iPhone 5S world, the screen is just fine and looks great and clear - but woe betide anyone that sees one of the larger devices out there.

We do want to applaud Apple for sticking to its guns and offering up a decent choice for those that like a smaller display, but this is already too big for one hand, so a little more real estate wouldn't go amiss.

And then there's the price. Some reviewers don't seem to think this should be taken into account, that the mere fact Apple can command such a high cost for its phones, both on contract and SIM free, and still sell millions shows this is a moot point.

Perhaps it was less of an issue when Apple was such a market leader, but now there are at least three worthy competitors out there, and they all cost significantly less.

We can't see what lives in the iPhone 5S to justify being the most expensive phone on the market, although we do recognise the effort that's gone into the premium design and spec list for the 5S.

Battery life is also a little suspect for our liking, and we're already considering buying a second charger to carry around.

Verdict

The iPhone 5S is, predictably, the best iPhone ever from Apple - but what's intriguing is just how much we enjoyed using this evolutionary device.

There's always an apathy with any kind of 'S' device from Apple, as it's historically just the same thing made a little bit better. It's true the advances on the iPhone 5S are few, but the ones that are there are very impressive indeed.

64 bit apps, while consumers are paying to not have access yet, are coming to really turbocharge the experience, and the A7 processor is clearly capable of some very heavy lifting.

The camera is improved impressively, taking some excellent shots with minimal backlift needed from the user, and the Touch ID sensor is the first real step into biometrics on a smartphone, and one that Apple has succeeded in implementing.

So to say this is the best iPhone yet is relatively pointless, as of course it was going to be. But the combination of iOS 7 to freshen things up with a powerful core and great camera mean that this phone should be considered on its own considerable merits, and while the high price will continue to put many off, anyone already wedded to the iPhone bandwagon, or even if they're just on the fence, will find a lot of joy in a phone that's a lot more than an iterative update.